Canada Vacation '18: Québec City - Day 3

Our last next full day of vacation brought another cool morning to enjoy, and another market to visit.

It is a colorful place to shop.

Québec City has several examples of street art. "For its 5th year, discover 9 fun and intriguing installations created by artists in the visual arts and collectives in architecture, which question our relationship to the world and the urban space." 

Chairs anchored into the ground are one of the art exhibits.

Each chair has a quote from a famous Canadian author, poet, and/or songwriter. You get something to sit and think about.

Leonard Cohen, I'm your fan.

The fountain is striking, but so is the VIA building behind it. Daphne marveled, "Can you believe that is a train station?" 

More street art: This is a replica of the Canadian space satellite Alouette that "crashed" onto the hood of a car in Old Quebec.

We found a place to rest while walking down by the water looking for more street art.

The little waterfront cafe served the best... wait for it...

... hot dogs!

I'm serious. That hot dog was awesome.

How good was it? One of last items on a menu that Daphne would order has to be the lowly hot dog. She'll take a polite bite if I offer, though. This time she took a bite and marveled at how good it was. It couldn't have hurt that he bun was browned in butter. I offered her another bite, and she said, "If you're willing to share, you bet!"

Lesters, that's a huge compliment from my wife.

If these are the official hot dogs for the Montreal Alouettes football team, then we just might have to go to a game.

We continued walking by the water. This rotating eye tower is quite an interesting structure.

A lot kids were playing in the fountains, but Charlotte was "too old" to do that. At least, she was too old to have her picture taken while she didn't play in the fountains. "Dad, put your phone away!"

I didn't listen to my 7-year-old.

She's not "too old" for theses, though.

Irish street performers:

This wins my vote for best door stop.

We had our last dinner in Québec City in this small French restaurant that was just a little off the beaten path.

Our waitress was so nice.

The restaurant was featured in Louise Penny's novel Bury Your Dead. 

Our waitress said that this table is featured in the book, so we'll have to see what that's all about...

I tried to get arty with this picture. I wanted the plane's contrail to look like it was coming out of the trumpet. 

I was playing around with the contrail on this one, too. 

Time to go to home and relax. Thanks for another fun day, Québec City.

Canada Vacation '18: Québec City - Day 2

The next morning I was first out the door, and I was greeted with 58 degrees and clear skies.

I yelled back into the apartment, "Ladies, you have to get out here!" When Charlotte ran out, she laughed and spun in a circle with her arms outstretched. She exclaimed, "This! Feels! So! Good!" The heat of Montreal was swiftly forgotten.

It was time to catch the shuttle bus to the Aquarium Du Québec after a breakfast on the go,

We have tried to replicate the tide pool experience Char had at Seattle, but every other aquarium has come up a bit short. 

One animal we hadn't seen at an aquarium was a walrus. The two they have at Québec were impressive.

Well, that's a pretty name.

Daphnée was quite a poser.

The white fox enclosure was one of the more popular exhibits.

They sure look like dogs. Char would have loved to pet one, "Aww. They're so cute!"

Sandcastle art.

The aquarium also has an Adventure Circuit for kids 6-12. "There are nets, catwalks, gangplanks, vines, and so on. A way to develop balance and self-reliance while burning up energy!" It's a cool feature.

Jellyfish displays are hypnotic.

The aquarium shuttle only has one drop off and one pick up time. You get three hours at the aquarium and no more, and that's perfect. Three hours is about all I can stand. 

When got off the shuttle we were greeted with a street performance. Monsieur Rene was pretty spry for a guy deep into his 60's.

For $95,000 dollars (but it's Canadian dollars!), you too can own the "Danse du temps I" statue by Salvador Dali.

Canons. Québec City is littered with canons.

The ice toboggan run wasn't open. It was a cool day, but not that cool.

Taking a break during a trail walk.

Here's the Saint-Louis Gate into the city.

Charlotte snuck into a store display window while Daphne shopped for shoes. I frown on such shenanigans. 

She's holding a cup of candy, by the way.

"Umm, yeah. I'm in Canada, and my cell phone doesn't work..."

"Gummy snakes... why does always have to be Gummy snakes?"

One strange feeling that I couldn't shake was the desire to call it quits around 5:30 p.m. We have had to be home by 5:30 to let our dog Maggie out for the past 11 years. You stretch the time too much past that, and you have some cleaning up to do, and no one likes that. 

I always check my watch in late afternoon, and more than once I almost said to Daph, "Well, we should probably be heading back." Instead of saying that, I usually said, "What should be have for dinner?"

There are restaurants and bars located up and down the streets of Québec City. Some would invite us in, some would say we couldn't enter because they were a bar, some said they were a bar, but could sit upstairs, and others said Char could come in, but we'd have to sign a waiver that we wouldn't give Charlotte alcohol. We never did figure out how to tell one establishment from another - they all looked the same and had the same open-window frontage.

Oh well, one place let all three of us in. After we signed the waiver, we had charcuterie for dinner.

Another thing I couldn't figure out is how to pronounce "charcuterie". "Meat and cheese tray" is so much easier to say.

Canada Vacation '18: Québec City - Day 1

Québec City was as far north as were going to go. Daphne thought it might be the most European of the cities on our trip, so we decided to spend three days there instead of two.

If you want fresh squeezed orange juice at the train station, they got you covered.

Continuing the drinking theme, Daphne and Charlotte played Lemonade Stand on the computer. The trains have free Wi-Fi and electrical outlets.

I read the third installment in Andrew Cartmel's Vinyl Detective series. The mystery part of the plot is secondary for me. I like the characters and all the crate digging for rare records. Plus, paperbacks travel lighter.

Our basement apartment in Québec City was located at 9 1/2. That's almost the platform for the Hogwarts Express.

The doors were just Charlotte's size. 

The apartment's owner met us when we arrived, and she warned us that we had to duck twice if we wanted to avoid injury. It wasn't a problem.

Once inside, you are in the exposed brick living room. Pretty cool.

The bedroom and bathroom were in the back. Sorry Charlotte, you get the fold out couch, again.

It is not a great picture, but here is the kitchen. Daphne's researching the local aquarium.  

When we on the bus in Niagara Falls, I had some concerns that its weaving route would cause us to miss our train. I wasn't the only one. A couple of women sitting behind us asked Daphne where we were going, and Daph calmed their fears like she does for me. 

We all got to the train station on time, and the two women changed their tickets so they could leave for Toronto at the same time as us. While waiting for the train, Daphne talked to the two sisters - they were tourists from Brazil - for quite some time. Charlotte and I were walking around killing time when Char said, "I think mom is making new friends." I agreed.

We saw the two ladies again in the Toronto train station, and we all wished each other good luck. They had told us their itinerary, and I said, "Well, maybe we will see you in Québec."

Guess what? We did see them.

We were given a window seat in a restaurant that we had chosen at random. While we were waiting for our waitress, the sisters from Brazil appeared in the window. Kisses and hugs all around! It was actually quite exciting. You would have thought we had run into long lost friends. 

Daphne has a business card for the woman in glasses, and I think we'll exchange Christmas cards. 😀

I said to Daphne while were walking back to the apartment, "Boy, this sure doesn't look like Des Moines." Daphne beamed back at me, "No, it sure doesn't."

You can see our little Hobbit door near the staircase. 

Time to duck twice and relax for the night.